Intrac - M&E Universe

Purpose

INTRAC is a civil society support organisation based in Oxford. Since 1992, they have contributed significantly to the body of knowledge on monitoring and evaluation (M&E), encouraging M&E based on understanding what works for different people in different contexts. INTRAC is developing a free online interactive tool that will allow M&E practitioners and staff with different levels of experience and expertise, working in different contexts, to access practical guidance and resources; and join the latest M&E debates.
We offered some ways toward realising this vision. INTRAC hoped to use the small prototype that we were going to make, to pitch for additional funds to create a full data-driven product.

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People

INTRAC exists to strengthen the effectiveness of civil society to challenge poverty and inequality, empowering people to gain greater control over their own future.
Our vision is that people are able to come together and to organise in forms that are effective, sustainable, rooted and legitimate in their own societies; and are able to participate in a vibrant and interconnected global movement for social justice, human rights and environmental sustainability.

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Process

We found several technical and design approaches which we believed could provide the prototype INTRAC were looking for. However, given the available budget, we had to choose between functionality and attractive design. We expected that we would probably be able to provide a visually attractive map, with an interface which permits easy navigation by panning and automatic scrolling. We probably would not be able to provide an editable content database in the time available.
To start off we devoted a day at the start of a project to understanding the users, and at least making explicit our assumptions about their needs and behaviours. The INTRAC team represented the users and provided guidance to us during the design process.

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Code

We built the M&E Universe prototype using Impress - a presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind prezi.com.